D-Nice's 2012 Panasonic Settings/Issues Thread with his 2012 Reference Settings:
They are not posted on AVS. To find them, you have to go to High Def Junkies dot com since they're only posted over there.
You need to be registered at HDJ before you can access the DISPLAY SETTINGS, CALIBRATIONS, & REVIEWS Forum where the thread resides.

While I'm sure there is a lot of marketing gimmick, it really looks like Panasonic made quite some leaps and bounds for the 2012 Plasma's! Any info on the "24,576 Super Fine Pitch Technology?" Is this as good as it sounds? And while the GT is a very nice looking TV, I think it was the ST series that is going to benefit most from the new design.

The VT50 sounds great. I Am extremely happy with my 1 month old VT30 but the VT50 sounds exciting! No Tvs in my near future though, and I couldn't think about waiting12 months until the VT50 comes down to the steal of a price I got the VT30 for. If the new sets are relatively problem free then there will surely be some happy 2012 Panasonic owners.

The problem with the CES Panny announcements every year is it takes 6 months to determine whether the reality meets the promise which is suggested by the new display technology.

Most of the other 'features' announced involve bells and whistles in the form of social networking, more internet connectivity, etc, and that gave me (and hopefully most of you videophiles) a big yawn. Most people out there just want to plop themselves in front of the set. And if they don't then they aren't really watching TV, but trying to do many things at once, which we know is impossible as humans cannot multi-task well at all. (Reminds me of the annoyance of people in movie theatres that are texting and talking on the phone while attempting to watch a movie). If anyone wants to network while watching TV that can already easily be done by grabbing an iPad, laptop, iPhone, smartphone and twittering, tweeting, facebooking and chirping to one's heart's content.

This part Steve Jobs got right. He realized that the TV will always remain a relatively passive experience and people want it that way. They want to tune in and turn off and immerse themselves in what is showing on the TV. That is why he was totally focused on making the experience of operating the TV simple, ie changing channels, finding content, having content, etc. In this respect, Apple TV is a big step in the right direction. Coupled with a great TV and Netflix it is where TV is going. I think most of the social networking bells and whistles Panasonic has introduced will be hardly used. And, I think they are best kept outside of the TV and accessed in a manner like Apple TV has implemented (small tiny simple inexpensive box which can be connected to any TV).

So, it'll be the summer when the reviews are out and one can determine whether the new TVs are worth buying from the improvement in display technology aspect, but then of course CES is just around the corner again and, um, why not wait, lol.....

I really can't tell much from this so far, but I'm sure that we'll get more info. This is just another evolution, but I guess that is what I expected. I wonder if there are any "revolutions" on the horizon for plasma? I suppose not. Anything like "LED backlighting"..."120Hz vs. 60Hz"...etc. that have come out for LCDs in the past several years (don't take this to mean that I expect these things on plasmas...i know they are irrelevant to plasma tech, but they were "advances" for LCDs)? Now, I'm not saying these things were great improvements (certainly LED has distractors), but at least they were something somewhat revolutionary. Anything on the horizon like that for plasmas? I suppose not, given that it seems more mature and stable.

Someone better tell Panasonic that OLED is breathing down their necks, incremental improvements are not going to save them now.

Samsung no longer gives a crap about plasma, so it's up to Panasonic to deliver TVs which don't buzz and have similar image quality to OLED today so people won't just wait a year or two for OLED to become affordable.

Looks like Panasonic has put some information about the new 2012 features on their panasonic.net web page. (Sorry I am too new to the forum and cannot post a url link but just go to the .net site and go to consumer and viera tvs)

They refer to the panel as
- "A milestone has been reached in our search for optimal picture quality"
- "The materials and structure of the Plasma panel have been re-engineered from the ground up"
- "This new panel"
- "Redesigned panel structure"

They show a number of images offering a number of comparisons and advantages the 2012 panel has over the 2011 panel.

Someone better tell Panasonic that OLED is breathing down their necks, incremental improvements are not going to save them now.

Samsung no longer gives a crap about plasma, so it's up to Panasonic to deliver TVs which don't buzz and have similar image quality to OLED today so people won't just wait a year or two for OLED to become affordable.

Oh please. OLED is not even available yet, will only be available in a couple sizes, if that, later in the year and the price won't be price competitive for a few years. And you can also be sure Panasonic will remain in the game with OLED or another competitive technology themselves.

Looks like Panasonic has put some information about the new 2012 features on their panasonic.net web page. (Sorry I am too new to the forum and cannot post a url link but just go to the .net site and go to consumer and viera tvs)

They refer to the panel as
- "A milestone has been reached in our search for optimal picture quality"
- "The materials and structure of the Plasma panel have been re-engineered from the ground up"
- "This new panel"
- "Redesigned panel structure"

They show a number of images offering a number of comparisons and advantages the 2012 panel has over the 2011 panel.

Then there is also the "NEW" cpu/engine/etc

If they're using the new panel tech in the entire 2012 product line-up, and not just limiting it to the VT series like they did last year, then I question why they have so many different models when there are so few remaining differences between them. Seems to me they could do away with at least half of their seven different Plasma series. It's pretty bogus that companies are limiting things like half-decent out-of-the-box calibration (THX mode) and adequate ambient-light filtering to only the $1900+ models.

Oh please. OLED is not even available yet, will only be available in a couple sizes, if that, later in the year and the price won't be price competitive for quite some time. And you can also be sure Panasonic will remain in the game with OLED or another competitive technology themselves.

Panasonic has an 8.5 Gen OLED plant in Himeji for R&D purposes. I believe 2013 is the target date for them IIRC.